Let’s work with the way in which your mind and, specifically, your limiting beliefs and painful thoughts come into this process.

Most of us are aware of the inner critical voice that can plague us with doubting, shaming, chiding, even insulting thoughts, often denigrating our self-worth or questioning our right to exist.

To begin, bring to mind one of your painful thoughts or limiting beliefs — perhaps the one associated with the physical place of resistance that you just held and loved, or notice any limiting or painful thought that is bothering you right now.

Notice where you feel that thought reverberating in your body.

Where does it anchor in your system?

Oftentimes a very painful thought will reverberate or be anchored in a pretty specific area, like your heart, or in a part of your body where you may have chronic pain, or a place that was traumatized at some point in the past, like your throat or belly, or anywhere, actually.

Simply notice where the connection is between the painful or limiting thought and your body. If it seems to connect to everywhere, notice where the connection seems the strongest or densest; it may be a familiar place.

Wherever the anchor of your pain or discomfort is, allow your internal healing presence, your energy hands, to come and cradle that place as we proceed, loving it as unconditionally as you can in this moment.

No agenda. Simply being present with it, holding it gently and witnessing it in the kind, unconditional way you just finished practicing.

Can you open to the possibility that this thought is not true at some level?

Really, you don’t know whether it’s true or not. Even though you may have a lot of data from past history to back up the fact that it might have been true at some point, you really don’t know whether it is still true.

So now ask yourself, “What would it feel like if I were open to the possibility that this painful thought or limiting belief is not true? What would it feel like?”

And make this question very specific to whatever your painful thought is.

For example, if the thought is “I am not good enough,” you might say instead, “I’m open to the possibility that this thought of not being good enough is just not true. I’m open to the possibility that I am good enough.”

When you are ready, you can go a step farther and say, “I’m open to the possibility not only that am I good enough, but that who I am is a pleasure...is a pleasure.”

Notice how that feels inside when you can say that to yourself and sit with it, believing it, if only for a moment.

Letting all internal judgments go silent.

What does it feel like in your body?

What’s the sensation in the area now being cradled by those wonderful energy hands? Simply notice.

What would it feel like in your body if you could suspend that limiting belief and feel the ways in which you are a pleasure?

Allow that area to fully receive that possibility, even if it is only for a short while right now.

Allow yourself to open even more to that possibility.

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What does that feel like? Feeling that you truly are a pleasure.

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Can you feel any of the tightness dissipating?

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Can you feel more ease in this place?

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Can you feel any expansion inside as your perceptual lens expands?

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Allow the healing process to unfold. Good.

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This process takes positive affirmations all the way to the core of your being because you are actually feeling in your body — physically sensing — what it is like to open to new possibilities. This allows you to heal not just mentally, but emotionally and physically and, thus, spiritually as well.

And notice how this place feels now compared to when you began this process. Allow yourself to notice the small subtle changes as well as the big ones. Simply being with this place with gratitude for all the healing, large and small, that may have occurred here today.

And let this place you’ve been holding and loving — and dialoguing with — gently know that you will continue to hold it with loving presence, even though you may not have it in your conscious awareness as you go on back out into your life.

And you may want to commit to returning to this exploration tomorrow and perhaps the next day if something still remains that needs your conscious attention to bring it to completion. So take a moment and see what commitment, no matter how small, you want to make to yourself in terms of this healing process, and then commit to it for as long as it takes.

Suzanne Scurlock-Durana, is the author of Reclaiming Your Body and Full Body Presence. Her Healing from the Core curriculum combined with CranioSacral therapy and other bodywork modalities creates a complete, body-centered guide to awareness, healing, and joy. She teaches around the world and lives in Reston, Virginia.